Chess: A Knight's Tour

June 19, 2005|BY BILL CORNWALL

All's well that ends well: Did you ever struggle with an opponent who adroitly sidestepped your favorite opening traps and alertly dodged all middlegame thrusts as well? Well, who hasn't? What can you do? Face it: sometimes, to win in the end, you must win in the endgame. This phase of the game, though, is often neglected by students who would prefer to just add new opening lines to their repertoires and solve tactical problems from their chess problem books.

Former U.S. Champion Arnold Denker once told me that his study of endings was the difference that allowed him to win the title. He had helped Ruben Fine check out the positions in his famous Basic Chess Endings book. After doing so, Denker was able to see endgame possibilities even during the opening stage of the game, thereby increasing his long-range vision. He could then steer for favorable endgames long before his opponents became aware of his schemes.

In a friendly speed game once, Denker's foe lost a pawn and quipped, "It's only a pawn!" Raising his eyebrows, Denker suddenly retorted, "ONLY a pawn?" He was just the magician who could transform the game into an endgame in which the lowly pawn could be promoted into a dominating queen. In this column's game, Fine displayed an even better trick, using a tactical flurry to create an even, but winning, pawn ending, at which point his foe surrendered. Fine's "outside" pawn can decoy the black king away, allowing the white king to feast on the kingside.

In the end: "In the endgame ... any move that gains time or saves time is a move which must be considered immediately." -- world champion Jose Capablanca

Congratulations: to the winners of the recent Summer Solstice Open in Boca Raton: Renier Gonzalez (Open Section), Michael Sheroff (Rated less than 2000), Suraj Kabadi (less than 1600), and Mel Goss(less than 1200).